I’d never had any particular intention of writing a thriller, but I was having coffee with a friend one day, who is a huge crime and thriller fan, and she happened to remark that she had never read a thriller set on a hen night. As soon as she said it, I knew this was a book that I wanted to write. I sat on the tube on the way home and the characters were literally walking on stage inside my head. By the time I got home I had the bones of the plot and I knew who did it, and why. After that I just had to write it down!

2. Do you have any role models? In terms of literature?

I don’t know about role models, but I have a huge list of writers I admire and love. Role models implies you consciously try to be like them though, and I don’t do that – because I think the most important thing as a writer is finding your own voice. You’re going to be influenced by other people, for sure. No-one writes in a vacuums. But I think that’s different from consciously emulating someone. I love reading Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie and Josephine Tey – as well as loads of others (too many to list), including lots of more modern thriller writers like Donna Tartt, Erin Kelly, Megan Abbott, Gillian Flynn and Sarah Waters. I definitely don’t try to imitate any of them. But I think each of them has some particular quality that I envy and admire.

3. Do you like reading? If yes, what kind of books do you like to read? Do you have any favorite books/authors?

I love reading – in fact we’ve just had to have two huge new bookcases built because my book collection keeps growing and growing and I can’t bring myself to throw any away. I love all the authors listed in question 2, but I also read a lot of non-crime authors, like Nancy Mitford, Elizabeth von Arnim, Anne Tyler, Margaret Atwood…

4. Is there any book you wish you had written yourself?

Hundreds. Right now, it’s probably Brideshead Revisited because I’ve just been listening to the BBC adaptation of it, and remembering how wonderfully evoked it is.

5. How did you come up with the idea of setting your novel on a hen night/„Jungesellinenabschied“? Was there a real example?

As I mentioned above, the idea for setting a thriller on a hen night was actually suggested by a friend. But I’ve been on enough real hen nights (including my own) to have plenty of material! It’s fair to say that most hen weekends don’t end as badly as the one in my book. In fact most of them are incredibly positive, happy experiences and a really important celebration of something that’s underrated in today’s romance-obsessed culture – the importance of friendship. But it’s also true that there’s a weird kind of double-edged situation with hen parties, and stags too, where the friendship is mixed with something darker. A lot of the rituals, both in the UK and around the world, are designed to humiliate the bride or groom to be. They are made to do embarrassing things, or deliberately made very drunk, or set up as the butt of pranks. Hen night are also becoming a lot more stressful and elaborate than the simple night down the pub that they used to be. It was fun to explore all those tensions in a crime novel!

6. Do you like Social Media and do you use them? Do you like the more direct contact with your readers?

I love social media – I’m on facebook and twitter (www.facebook.com/ruthwarewriter and http://www.twitter.com/ruthwarewriter ) and I really enjoy interacting with readers. I do find it’s a huge time-suck though. It’s easy to get sucked into online debates and chat, and find that you’ve spent the whole day on twitter. I have to be disciplined about getting off the internet and getting some work done. It’s always lovely to hear from someone who enjoyed your work though.

7. Is there any genre you would like to write in? If yes, would you use a pseudonym?

I always put a lot of jokes into my manuscript, most of which my editor makes me take out, so maybe there’s a comic writer inside me trying to get out? I don’t know!

8. If „Im dunklen, dunklen Wald“ was made into a movie, who would you want to star in it?

I’m always asked this question and I find it really hard to answer, because to me my characters are so real to me, I can’t imagine them being played by other people. It’s a bit like being asked who should play your dad. The answer is… well, my did is my dad. Not Harrison Ford or Donald Sutherland! But I think Kate Mara from House of Cards would make a great Nora. She has that combination of strength and vulnerability. And James looks a lot like the actor Dominic Cooper in my head. I’m not sure about the others though – I welcome any suggestions!

9. What was research for „Im dunklen, dunklen Wald“ like? Did anything special happen?

I had to do quite a lot of research about the technical aspects of the plot – stuff to do with memory loss and police procedure. It’s all the sort of thing that takes about two seconds to actually happen in the book, but takes hours of googling and research to find out the answer. I had a couple of very kind police friends who advised on interviewing protocol and crime scene analysis, and luckily I have several medics in the family, so I was able to check the medical questions with them. It was all rather boring desk-based stuff though, I didn’t actually get out and go clay pigeon shooting.

10. What is your typical work day like?

I have school age kids, so my day starts and finishes with the walk to school to collect them, and the walk back to my desk in the attic of our house. It’s good discipline because it makes me get up and get dressed, and do some exercise. Otherwise I strongly suspect that I would still be in my pyjamas at 6pm eating toast with the curtains closed. The walk back from school on my own is always when I start thinking about the day ahead, and it’s amazing how often a plot question has resolved itself by the time I get back to my desk. When I get home I have about 4 or 5 hours of solid writing time before I have to leave and collect the kids again, but of course I also have to fit in everything else into that – all my admin, paperwork, and of course interviews like this! Everything grinds to a halt when the kids get home, and I am busy being a mum, and getting food on the table and running them from a-b. However if I’m really on deadline, I sometimes try to snatch a couple of hours late at night when everyone is in bed. Sometimes those are my best writing hours. Often though, I’m just too shattered!

11. Do you have any plans for the future? Can you reveal something already?

Well, my next book, The Woman in Cabin 10 is out in the US and the UK now, so that’s really fun. And I’m working very hard on number 3 right now. I can’t tell you too much about it, but it’s about four women who went to boarding school together. Almost twenty years later they’re summoned back, to find a body has surfaced…

12. Do you have a question you always wanted to ask your readers?

Yes, who do you think should play my characters in a movie? Beware, I will totally pinch any good answers for future interviews!